


The Game

by PiecesOfScully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Horror, Ouija, Post Season 10, Scully meets the Ouija board, creepfic, halloween fic, i try to write scary shit sometimes, post revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiecesOfScully/pseuds/PiecesOfScully
Summary: This is a post revival fic, and was written for Halloween





	The Game

Scully’s eyes flick towards the coat closet across the room, and she squashes the urge to give in to the nagging itch that’s been growing in the back of her mind throughout the day. Instead, she holds her wine glass a little tighter and brings it to her lips, careful not to drip a single drop of chardonnay onto the spine of the book that lay upside down in her lap. With Mulder’s recent Wednesday night basketball games at the YMCA in town, she’s been afforded a few quiet hours a week in the home she inhabits once again, time to reacquaint herself with the quirks of an old house that only the homeowner can appreciate. The sound of the drippy kitchen faucet, the whine of the structure under a heavy wind, the comfort of sitting in her corner of the well-worn couch.

But under the white noise and behind the static silence, she can almost hear the clinking of her mother puttering around in the kitchen, humming to herself as she washed the dishes. She can still smell the faint traces of her mother’s perfume as she rushed past the couch, righting the stack of magazines on the coffee table. It’s been months since she’s passed away, yet nights like this Scully swears that she is still around, her presence as bold as ever.

Her eyes are drawn to the coat closet once again, and she releases a resigned sigh as she heaves herself to her feet. The closet door creaks as she pulls it open, and, blindly, she waves her hand in the darkness until she finds the hanging string. Following the quick tug, her vision is assaulted with suddenly visible clutter and junk shoved onto the built-in shelving as the bulb burns brightly above her, and she squints momentarily, giving her eyes a moment to adjust. With a shove, the outerwear that hangs on the rod before her is pushed to the side, and she scans the back shelf. Scrabble, Clue, Boggle…

Ouija.

The slick black box stares back at her, and she downs what’s left of her wine before pulling the box from it’s place. It feels smooth and light in her hands, and she swallows what feels like a giggle bubbling into the back of her throat. She knows deep down that she should feel guilt or worried at the prospect of inviting Satan himself into their home and her life, just as her mother had taught her so long ago. As she shuts the closet door behind her, a smile twitches at the corners of her mouth at the memory of the lecture she and Melissa had received when their mother had found a cootie-catcher in Missy’s backpack.

“Good catholic girls, *my* girls, will use nothing of the sort,” their mom had said, her voice strained with frustration as she ripped it into shreds. “Certainly not under my roof.”

“But Mom!” Missy had whined. “It’s just a folded piece of paper!”

“Like origami,” Dana added.

“And Tarot cards are just a deck of cards, and a Ouija board is just a board game.” Their mom turned to them after pushing the pieces of paper deep into the garbage and shutting the lid. “It’s not harmless, none of it, and don’t let anyone tell you any differently. Those games invite evil into your home…Now, go on, and wash your hands for dinner.”

Scully’s smile widens at the sense of rebelliousness that rushes over her as she pulls the board from the box, unfolding it onto the coffee table. After getting over the the shock of Scully agreeing to play, Scully is sure that Missy would be proud of her shoving all inhibitions and childhood lectures aside. Missy would praise her for having ‘an open mind, and letting loose,’ as she used to say.

It takes only a few minutes to refill her glass of wine and set up a handful of candles around the board, their soft glow replacing the bright overhead lights in the kitchen and living room. She sits cross-legged behind the coffee table and places the planchette at the top of the board, the circle eye resting in the center of the word OUIJA. After shaking off the unexpected nervous shudder that lingers behind a deep breath, she places her fingertips along the planchette’s rounded edge, focusing her eyes on the sheen of her fingernails and ignoring the shadows that flicker along the walls in her periphery.

“Um…hello?” she calls out, then chuckles to herself. “Is there anyone here that, um, would like to make their…presence known?”

Her fingers twitch atop the planchette, but it remains still. She closes her eyes, tamping down the utter foolishness she feels creeping into the back of her mind, and calls out again.

“I would like to speak with a loved one. Is there anyone here?”

She hears the house strain against the strong autumn winds outside, and the candles pop with burning life, glowing a rich orange on the back of her eyelids. Her lips purse as she waits, tapping the tips of her fingers against the curved edges of the planchette, before opening her eyes and sighing.

“This is absurd- why am I even-” she utters to herself, but as she lifts her fingers from the planchette, it jerks to the side, landing on NO. Her eyes widen as it slides of its own volition down the board in one slow, swift movement to land on the letter M. She lowers her head and peers under the coffee table, running her hand along the bottom of it, then straightens herself and stares at the board game.

“Oh my God.”

Scully’s eyes dart to the front door, hoping Mulder will for once have perfect timing and burst into their home, basketball in hand, to witness this. As open as he is to the paranormal, she knows he wouldn’t believe her if he didn’t see it with his own two eyes. Hell, she’s not sure if *she* believes what she’s seeing. As if sensing her incredulity, the planchette twitches, but continues to rest over the letter M.

She huffs, her skeptical mind unable to wrap around this unexplainable situation, then says, “M. Mulder? You want to speak to Mulder?”

Her eyebrows rise as it moves slowly again, the black lines of NO bold and visible through the eye, then returns to its position over the letter M once again. The pegs along the bottom of the planchette squeak as if sudden pressure is being applied, whining in resistance as they’re pushed across the surface of the board.

“A.”

“M.”

She swallows thickly as she whispers the last letter, “A.” An acute rush of hope floods through her, eliciting a gasp. “Mama? Oh my God, Mom, is that you? Are you here?”

She leans forward, her eyes boring into the plastic game piece as her heart beats rapidly in her chest. The flames of the candles flicker wildly under the rush of a breeze carrying the sweet smell of lilacs, and she inhales deeply. Instantly, she’s bombarded with hazy memories from her childhood, warm summer days of playing outside and her mother picking bouquets of her favorite flower from the bush in their backyard. The planchette, however, remains still providing no answer to her question.

“Mom,” she repeats as she blinks back tears that burn her lash line, and she places her fingertips on the game piece’s edge, hoping that the physical connection encourage her mother to stay, to talk. “Are you here with me?”

A shiver runs down Scully’s spine as the temperature in the room drops significantly. The planchette jerks once in its place over the A, before shifting its bottom slightly to the right, then slides in a swift diagonal to NO. Scully inhales sharply through her nose and recoils, yanking her hands back to the edge of the table and away from the planchette as if the tips of her fingers have been burned.

THUMP

Scully’s jumps at the loud noise and her eyes dart to the kitchen, only to be met with a looming darkness. Her eyes strain as they pierce into the room and her breaths fall shallow, with the heavy weight of dread curling in her belly.

“Shit,” she whispers to herself as she scans her surroundings in search of her pistol. The now familiar squeaking summons her attention back to the game that sits before her, and her jaw falls slack as the planchette settles over the letter Z.

“But I-” Her voice cracks and she clears her throat. Her hands clench into fists in her lap. “I didn’t ask a question.”

Her eyes widen and she leans back into the front of the couch as the planchette shifts over to the letter A, hovers for a moment, then back to the letter Z.

“Zaz?”

The planchette thrusts itself to NO, then continues back to the letters of the alphabet.

Z.

O.

Z.

O.

“I don’t under-”

A cold breeze rushes over her skin, leaving trail of goosebumps in its wake, the chill freezing the rest of the words in her throat. The planchette repeatedly picks up speed, jolting itself faster from Z to O, the squeaking replaced with a harsh scraping noise as it rushes back and forth.

“Zozo?” Scully’s brows furrow as she struggles to make sense of the word, but the game piece continues to repeat its path, over and over again, barely taking a moment to stop over each letter. The scraping sound grows louder with each pass before finally there is no break and it’s all she can hear. The flames of the candles are forced laterally as the planchette widens its path, from straight horizontal to a sideways figure eight.

Her heart races faster and her peripheral vision falls hazy, a cloudy blackness bleeding into the edges of her sight. She closes her eyes in an attempt to gather her bearings, but behind her eyelids she see’s herself propped up against the couch with her knees tucked to her chest. Scully see’s the flames of the candles run blue and then extinguish, and the smoke billowing into the air. She watches as it swirls around her, and her head is jerked backwards, her mouth hanging open. The planchette on the board jerks hastily from each letter of the alphabet to the next, backwards.

Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T-

A harsh whisper fills the room as Scully looks onto herself, helplessly. “With you,” it calls.

S, R, Q, P, O, N, M, L-

Scully’s sight zooms into her own face and she hears herself gasping for breath, the veins along her throat bulging and her muscles tightening as she struggles for oxygen.

K, J, I, H, G, F, E-

She watches as the edges of her own lips bruise purple.

D, C, B-

“With you,” she see’s herself mouth.

A.

The repetitive popping sound bursts through the house like gunfire, pulling Scully from her vision, and she opens her eyes with a loud gasp as if being yanked into reality from a nightmare. Her hands are immediately at her throat, instinctively feeling for bruising or any remnants of the assaulting vision, and coughs wrack through her upper body. She bends at her waist, her throat burning as she gulps air into her lungs.

Her eyes flit around the room as a familiar sense of dread coils in the lowest parts of her belly. The candles have been snuffed, thrusting her and the board game into darkness. A single stream of moonlight casts into the living room, illuminating the board and the planchette that sits hovering over the word YES.

“NO!” she yells, and jerks it to GOODBYE. On her hands and knees, Scully crawls to the end table, her hand fumbling across the surface for the lamp, then quickly recoils and hisses. A large shard of glass juts out from the center of her palm, and blood pools from the moon-shaped cut as she retracts it, rapidly streaking her hand and wrist with crimson lines.

Scully gasps and drops the shard onto the table as understanding dawns on her, a realization that the popping she had heard moments before, what pulled her from her vision, was the sound of light bulbs bursting throughout the house. 

Without hesitation, she grips the blanket from the couch and pulls it over her shoulders, then rushes through the darkness of her home and out the front door. The wind whips and pulls at her as she runs to her SUV, and throws herself into the driver’s seat and locks the doors.

She waits for what feels like hours, unable to take her eyes from the front door of their home, until Mulder’s headlights wash over her.


End file.
